A short political-literary biography of one of Chris Hitchen's heroes and role models, Thomas Paine. Just a pleasure to read. I especially enjoyed learning:

The actual usage of Samuel Johnson's "...last refuge of a scoundrel" comment.
That the key to the Bastille hangs at Mt. Vernon to this day.
The origin of the association of May Day with labor.
That Paine may have coined the name, The United States of America.
Paine's involvement with the French Revolution and his imprisonment there.
The origin of the association of "left" and the "right" with liberal and conservative.
The actual usage of Karl Marx's "...opiate of the masses" comment.
The amount of the Declaration of Independence that comes from Locke.

In the discussion of The Age of Reason, CH cannot restrain himself from almost participating in Paine's attack on organized religion, but far from being a detriment to the work, I found it as much a pleasure as watching old videos of Hitchens on YouTube. ( )

Hitchens is always so darn readable, and his wit is well-suited to the subject matter here. ( )

The best chapter is on Paine's 'Age of Reason', where Hitchens clearly takes great pleasure in recounting Paine:

[Hitchens]
He also cannot decide whether the supposed preachings of the Nazarene are admirable or not. In general, he follows the custom of most deists in rating the sermons and maxims as moral and 'amiable'. Yet he cannot conceal his contempt for the most central tenet of Christianity, which is the morally hideous concept of scapegoating or 'vicarious atonement':

[Paine]
If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

[Hitchens]
In other words, to hope to throw your sins upon another, especially if this involves a human sacrifice, is a grotesque evasion of moral and individual responsibility. ( )

I weeped like a little girl the night Hitch passed away...

His writing was often uneven, but his voice (thanks to so many debates and interviews) live on.

Cheers to Hitch.

( )

A bit disjointed overall, but an easily read account of Paine's role in the American Revolution. ( )